Every student in this school starts in grade eight, and they arrive from five schools with five slightly different accounts of where they have got to.
So the first six weeks are diagnostic. Every student sits an assessment in mathematics, English and Dhivehi in the second week. It is not used to stream anybody and it is not reported as a mark. It is used for two things: to find the students who need the study support periods, and to tell the departments where the gaps in this year's intake actually are.
The common finding, every year, is that students from the smaller schools are a term or two behind in mathematics and ahead in nothing in particular, which is not a judgement on those schools. A school with nine students in a grade cannot run the same programme as one with a hundred and forty.
Subjects in grade eight: Dhivehi, English, mathematics, integrated science, Islam, social studies, information technology, and the practical and physical periods. No stream and no choices.
What we ask of families in this year. Read the first report properly, come to one of the two parents' meetings, and ring the form teacher in the telephone hour if anything looks wrong. A student who is struggling in grade eight can be caught. A student who is struggling and nobody says anything until grade ten cannot be caught in the same way, and we have both kinds every year.